Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-07-15
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject: Holding the Rope
preached at Martha's
Vineyard.)


'Ods / let dolvn by the lUaH. III Cor. XII, 30.
Sermons on Paul in jail, Paul on Mars Hill,
Paul in shipwreck, Paul before the Sanhedrim,
Paul before Felix are plentiful, but in my
text we have Paul in a basket. Damascus is
city Of white and glistening architecture,
sometimes called "the eye OF the East, some
times called pearl surrounded by emeralds,"
at one time distinguished for swords OF
the best material, called Damascus blades,
and upholstery of richest fabric called
damasks. A horseman by the name of
Saul, riding toward this city, had been
thrown from the saddle. The horse had
dropped under a flash from the sky, which
at the same time was so bright it blinded
the rider for many days. and, think, so per-
maueutly injured his eyesight that this defect
of vision became the thorn in the flesh he
afterward speaks of. He started for Damas-
Gus to butcher Christians, but after that hard
fall from his horse he was a changed man
and preached Christ in Damascus till the city
was shaken to its foundation.
The Mayor gives authority for his arrest,
and the popular cry is xiii him! hill himn
The city is surrounded by "A high wall and the
gates are watched by the police lest the
Clcilian preacher escape. Many of the houses
were built on the wal, and their balconies pro-
Jected clear over and lowered above the gar
dens outside. 1t was customary to lower bas-
kets out of these balconies and pull up fruits
and flowers from the gardens. To this day
visitors at the monastery at Mount Sinai are
lifted and let down IN baskets Detectives
prowled around from house to house looking
for Paul, bat his friends hid him, now in one
place, now in another. He is no coward,
as fifty incidents in his life de-
monStrates. But he feels his work
is not done yet, and so he evades assassina-
ton. g Is that preacher here Z" the foam
ing mob shout at one house door. Z" Is that
fanatic here Z" the police shout at another
house door. Sometimes on the street incog
nito he passes through crowd of cenched
fists and sometimes he secretes himself on
the housetops At last the Infatuated
populace get on sure track of him. They
have positive evidence that he is in the
house of one of the Christians, the balcony
of whose home reaches over the wall
Here he is Here he is ~ The
vociferation and blasphemy and bowling of
the pursuers are at the front door. They break
in. Fetch out that gospeliz9r, and let us
hang his head on the city gate. Where is hep
The emergency was terrible. Providentialy
there was good stout basket in the house.
Pauls friends fasten q rope to the basket
Paul steps intoi it, The basket is lifted to the
edge OF the balcony on the wall, and then
while Paul holds on to the rope with both
hands, his friends lower away, carefully and
cautiously, slowly but surely, further down
and further down, until the basket strikes
the earth and the apostle steps out and afoot
and alone starts on that famous missionary
loul, Ollc Sui vi WHICH has uSJOllSIleu 6dlUn
and heaven. Appropriate entry in Pauls
diary of travels; Through window in
basket was l let down by the wall"
Observe, first, on what a slender tenure
great results hang. The ropemaker who
twisted that cord fastened to that lowering
basket never knew how much would depend
upon the strength of it, How if it had been
broken and the apostles life had been dashed
out! What would have become of the Chris
tan church? All that magnificent mission.
airy work in Pamphilia, Cappadocia, Galatia,
Macedonia would never have been accom-
phshed. All his writings that make up SO
Indispensable and enchanting a part of the
New Testament would never have been writ
ten. The story of resurrection would never
have been so glOriously told as he told it.
That example of heroic and triumphant
endurance at Philippi, in the Mediterranean
Euroclydon, under flagellation and at his
beheading, would not have kindled the
courage of ten thousand martyrdoms But
that rope holding that basket, how much de.
pended on it! So, again and again, great
results have hung on what seemed slender
circumstances
Did ever ship of many thousand tons cross
ing the sea have such important passenger as
had once boat of leaves from taffrail to
stern, only three or four feet, the vessel made
waterproof by coat of bitumen, and float
ing on the Nile with the infant lawgiver Of the
Jews on board! What if some crocodile
should crunch it! What if some of the cattle
wading in for drink should sink it! Vessels
OF war sometimes carry forty guns looking
through the port holes, ready to open battle.
But that tiny craft on the Nile seems to be
armed with all the guns of thunder that BON.
barded Sinai at the lawgving On how
fragile craft sailed how much historical i'm.
portance!
The parsonage at Epworth, England, is
on fre Ill the night, and the father rushed
through the hallway for the rescue of his
children. Seven children are out and safe on
the ground but one remains in the consuming
building. That one wakes AMI finding his
bed on fire and the building crnmblng, comes
10 the window and two peasants make q lad
Ger or their bodies, one peasant standing on
the shoulder of the other, and down the hu.
man ladder the boy dscends-John Wesley
Ii you would know how much depended on
that ladder of peasants, ask the millions of
Methodlsts on both sides of the sea- Ask
their mission stations all around the world.
Ask their hundreds of thousands already as
cended to join their founder, who would have
persisted but far the living stairs of peasants
shoulders.
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn Island
and right in the midst of sVrroundig canni-
balism and squalor the passengers discovered
Christian colony of churches and schools
and beautiful homes and highest style of relig-
ION and civilization. For fifty years no mis-
there. Why this oasis of light amid desert
OF heathendomE Sixty years Eefore ship
had met disaster and one Of the sailors, un-
able to save anything else went to his
trunk and took out q Bible which
his mother had placed there and swan
ashore, the Bible held in his teeth The book
was read on all sides until the rough and
vicious population were evangelical, and a
church was started and an enlightened COM
monwealth established, and the worlds
history has no more brilliant page than that
which tells of the transformation of nation
by one book 1t did not seem of much
Importance whether the sailor continued to
hold the book in his teeth or let it fall in the
breakers, but upon what small circumstance
depended what mighty results!
Practical inference: There are no insig.
niticances in our lives The minutest thing is
part of magnitude. Intinity is made up of
inhnitesimals, Great things an aggregation
of small things Bethlehem manger pulling
a star in the eastern sky. One book in a
drenched sailors mouth the evangelzation
of Il multitude. One boat of papyrus on the
Nile freighted with events for all ages The
fate of Christendom in a basket let down
from window on the wall. What you do,
do well. If you make rope make it strong
and true, for you know not how much
may depend on your workmanship If
you fashion a boat let it be waterproof,
for you know not who may sail in it. If
you put a Bible in the trunk of your boy as
he goes from home let it be heard in your
prayers, for it may have q mission as far
reaching as the book which the sailor carried
i'll his teeth to the Pitcairn beach. The plain
est mans life is all island between two eterni-
tles-etern1ty past ripping against his
shoulders, eternity to come touching his
brow. The casual, the accidental that
which merely happened so, are parts of
great plan, and the rope that lets the fugitive
apostle from the Damascus wall is the cable